


Second chances

by Mierke



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, pre-story character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-03-23
Packaged: 2019-04-06 22:15:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14066736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mierke/pseuds/Mierke
Summary: Harry returns Snape's memories - after 22 years. Post-DH story, though Snape survived.





	Second chances

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cerberusia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cerberusia/gifts).



> Warning for pre-story character death.
> 
> Written for cerberusia, who asked for a story exploring the complicated dynamics between Snape and Harry, with the additional prompt of: _Post-war, Harry has his kids (and maybe still a wife) and Snape is a middle-aged hermit_.

A knock on the door sounded through the house, and Severus Snape looked up in wary surprise. Not many people knew where he lived, and few of those would be let through his extensive wards. Even fewer would want to visit him, and none would actually be welcome.

Whoever it was knocked again, and Severus grumbled under his breath. He knew the house wouldn't let anyone in who meant him harm, but the wards had taken on a bit TARDIS-like qualities these days (he'd been watching a lot of television lately; some of it was surprisingly interesting) and would let people through who annoyed the hell out of him and who he would not want to see but they thought would be good for him. He hadn't even known sentient wards were a thing before all this.

He opened the door and stared at the man in front of him. The boy had aged well, though lines around his face spoke of all the tragedy he'd been through, his skin almost as pale as Severus'. He looked both more and less like his father, who had never been allowed to reach the age of - what would it be now? - 39. But what in the name of Merlin was Harry bloody Potter doing on his doorstep?

"Happy birthday, sir," Potter said, and Severus allowed himself a snort at the polite address after showing up at his door unannounced. Potter wasn't even on the list of people who knew where he lived.

"How did you find me?" he asked; though his actual question was more along the lines of 'what the hell are you doing here?', stopping this security leak was definitely one of his priorities. He couldn't have just about anyone waltz up to his house.

"Finding things that don't want to be found is kind of my specialty," Potter said, and at least he had the decency to look a tad ashamed.

"I thought..." he hesitated, and then righted his back as if gathering the strength that had brought him here once more. "I thought you might want company on this day."

"You think I'm uncapable of inviting my own company?" Severus answered, raising his eyebrow in question, satisfied when some of that bluster went out of Potter's muscles. He was seriously not in the mood for this.

"No, right, of course, sir," Potter stumbled. Severus almost thought that'd be the end of it, but the boy had always had a spine of steel at the most inopportune moments (if he were to be honest with himself, and that's the one thing he'd decided upon after secluding himself from anyone and everything, that he wouldn't hold up lies any longer, sometimes at the right moments as well).

The boy took out three objects from his bag, and laid them on Severus' doorstep, carefully making sure not to cross the line of the house itself. Whether it was politeness or cautiousness, Severus couldn't tell, but he found himself strangely grateful anyway.

"My father was a bully," Potter said, and by the infliction in his voice Severus could tell that this was why he had sought him out. "The Marauders have never really been given the chance to grow up and realize that what they had done was wrong, so I am doing it for them. I would like to apologize on behalf of Remus Lupin," - the first gift revealed itself to be a collection of chocolates, dark and heady, obviously from a specialty store - "Sirius Black," - the second gift turned out to be a broomstick - "and James Potter" - the third gift made Severus' throat close up; Lily's face greeted him from the cover of a book that seemed to hold even more pictures - "for the way they treated you. They were wrong. Life is not meant to be spent humiliating others."

He took a deep breath, nodded once, and turned around to leave. Severus wasn't entirely sure what possessed him, only that seeing Lily again brought up so many feelings that he had thought long buried, and he called out: "What about Peter Pettigrew?"

Potter turned to face him once more, and even at the distance Severus could see the hatred burning in his eyes. That was a sentiment he could agree with, at least.

"Pettigrew can rot in hell, for all I care."

"No cake?" Severus asked, after a silence that stretched on too long and still didn't feel awkward.

"I do have cake," Potter admitted, and Severus stepped aside, silently giving Potter access to his home. He must be going crazy with old age, but the wards seemed to hum in approval as the boy - the man, now, really - stepped over the threshold.

"Why are you here?" Severus asked, as they sat down at his living room table, a steaming mug of tea in hand and a slice of cake on the table. It was good cake, he'd give Potter that.

"I came to apologise," Potter answered, and Severus waved his hand in dismissal.

"That doesn't explain anything," he said.

Potter looked at his tea, warming his hands on the mug. He seemed unsure for the first time, and Severus had a flashback to the very first time he had seen the boy sitting in his classroom. He had only been able to see James at the time, had wanted to hurt him so much that he had forgotten to look at the person underneath. With hindsight, he supposed Potter must have looked a lot like this back then.

"Ginny died," Potter whispered, then he shook his head and continued (Severus was grateful for that, having no idea how to respond to a statement made so blunt and yet in so much pain), "But that's not why I'm here. Nobody should be alone on their birthday."

Severus raised an eyebrow.

"You've come to save me from my fate, then?" he asked and Potter shrugged.

"I realise having me around could make things worse," he said. "And for all I know, you might have had plans. I just... I felt like I had to try."

"You were the one who invited me in," he pointed out, and Severus all but flinched at the reminder.

"Only the polite thing to do," he shrugged it off, carefully avoiding the examination of his own motivation for letting Potter in. It had been the wards, he reminded himself (as if they had somehow made him do something he hadn't wanted).

"And I brought cake," Potter smirked, and Severus almost smiled.

"And that," he allowed.

They drank their tea in silence after that. Severus, never one for filling the space with mindless chatter, found he actually didn't mind Potter's presence all that much as long as he wasn't talking. The silence was just that, silence, and didn't seem to be filled with meaning the way silences with other people (he would not think of Dumbledore, he would not) always had felt.

"Why did you invite me in?" Potter asked as he drank the last of his tea. "I suspect I'm not on top of your wish list for people to celebrate your birthday with."

"I don't celebrate my birthday," Severus said, choosing to ignore Potter's question.

"Why not?" Potter asked. Had he sounded curious or sensational at all, Severus would have kicked him out of the house, but the question had been carefully neutral. Potter had grown up, it seemed, and Lily was shining through his actions more than James today. 

"I wasn't supposed to survive," Severus said, not sure what possessed him to tell the truth, and then, to his astonishment, Potter actually laughed. Severus was ready to stand up and kick him out of his house, when Potter got himself under control.

"I'm sorry," Potter said, "That was inappropriate."

He even managed to look apologetic, though Severus wasn't entirely convinced that wasn't just a mask. His right hand twitched near his wand, and he wasn't sure why he didn't use it. Spelling Potter out of his house would be highly satisfying, and wouldn't that be a nice birthday gift?

"Maybe not a lot of people cared whether you lived or died, as long as you served your purpose," Potter stated, and Severus all but blanched at the frankness of his words. Wordlessly, he spelled Potter's tea to be steaming hot again, and he smiled when Potter burned his tongue. Petty, maybe, but he was too tired for a drawn out fight, and too bloody intrigued by what Potter had to say to kick him out.

"Me," Potter said, seemingly shrugging his scalding hot tea off as a freak accident, or maybe he knew perfectly well what had happened but chose not to react. That would speak of a maturity Severus would never have expected from the boy who never applied himself in class, but maybe people did change. He took a sip from his own cup, only to nearly spit it out when he tasted coffee instead of tea. He hadn't even noticed a spell being cast, and admitted to himself a grudging respect for Potter’s ability, even though he adjusted his earlier thoughts about his supposed maturity.

"I was literally kept alive so I could die," Potter continued, and Severus forgot all about tea and coffee and maturity, his mind reeling with pain. "So forgive me for laughing for saying you were supposed to die. No one was supposed to die. Maybe Dumbledore made the possibility of death more likely than not, maybe he cared more about winning than about keeping you alive, but he wasn't pushing for you to not survive. He didn't ask you to actively seek out your own death. That honour was reserved for the Boy Who Lived."

Potter took something out of his pocket, then, and Severus tensed, for one crazy second certain he was drawing his wand. But a vial appeared on the table, a vial he recognized as one of his own.

"I should have returned these years ago," Potter said. "But I was too scared to seek you out, and I didn't think you'd be glad for the company either. Didn't want to leave them on your doorstep just now, that felt... disrespectful. But here you go. They've been stored in a magical vault for the last twenty years, and the vial should have held them intact."

"What's in there?" Severus asked.

"Memories," Potter stated, and Severus' hand twitched again.

"I can see that," Severus snapped. "But of what? Of whom?"

"Lily," Potter said, and Severus reeled.

"Get out," he gritted out between his teeth. Potter hesitated a moment too long, and the wards, sensing Severus' distress, forced Potter to apparate out of the house. It was a safety measure that hadn't been perfected - he wasn’t too interested in the well-being of the people he forcibly removed from his home - but he couldn't spare any concern for Potter right now.

He eyed the vial warily. The Battle of Hogwarts was such a blur in his mind, tainted and twisted by the snake venom that he'd only barely survived, that he had forgotten he'd given away his memories. He had thought he'd lost them on his own, tormented himself over not really loving Lily all that much if he couldn't even remember the first time they had met.

He took a deep breath to keep himself from shaking, knowing all too well he shouldn't take any chances with this, and used his wand to pull the memories back into his head.

It wasn't like watching them in a pensieve, gaining their knowledge gradually; instead, one moment his memories weren't there, and the next they were, crystal clear as if the events hadn't happened over 40 years ago. Grief threatened to overtake him, and though is mind was fuller than it had been before, his soul felt hollowed out.

* * *

A month later, Harry again stood before the haunted looking house. It didn't make any sense, but he hadn't been able to put Snape out of his mind, and he wanted to... If he was honest with himself, he had no idea what he wanted. But Snape didn't have to know that, right?

"What are you doing here?" Snape asked, filling the doorway to block Harry's entry.

"I wanted to see you," Harry replied. He had been cautious enough to stand just outside the perimeters of the wards; he could feel them lapping at his toes. He was leaning against a lamppost, actually, and steadily met Snape's eyes.

"Too bad," Snape replied, and he started to close the door.

"Your call, of course," Harry answered. "But I'm not leaving. And you won't believe how interested the press is these days in finding out who the Boy Who Lost His Wife is spending his time with..."

The door opened again, and not for the first time in Harry's life, he was grateful looks couldn't kill. He was certain he wouldn't have survived long enough to take on Voldemort if that had been the case.

Snape stepped aside, not saying a word as he allowed Harry entry into his home.

Now Harry had gotten access into the building, his brain started to short-circuit. He tried to force his breathing to calm down, but there was no fighting the panic attack that slowly but surely started to overtake him. Being forcibly Apparated out of the house last time had been quite overwhelming, the helplessness of it all bringing back so many awful memories, and the idea that it could happen again at any moment...

What had he been thinking, how could it ever have been a good idea to go back?

He leaned against the wall, his sight blurry, his hands starting to tingle.

"Breathe," he sternly reminded himself, and he tried to use the techniques he had been taught. In - two - three - four, hold - two - three - four, out - two - three - four - five - six - seven - eight. In - two - three - four...

Slowly the room came back into focus again; Harry shivered as he tried to shake off the panic. He raised his eyes to see Snape watching him, a look on his face that Harry was certain he interpreted wrong; he had expected scorn and derision, but Snape almost looked worried.

"They have potions for that, you know," Snape said, as he put down two steaming mugs of tea that he seemed to have made while Harry had been drowning in fear.

"I know," Harry replied, and he made his way forward (his legs back in working order) and sat down at the table, though in a different chair than last time. Sometimes small differences could keep the panic from returning. "I stopped taking them about ten years ago. Didn't need them anymore."

"Obviously," Snape replied, and now Harry could hear the derision he had expected.

"They started back up again a few months ago," Harry said, and he took a sip from his tea. He could see Snape calculating in his head, and he wondered if he had looked up when Ginny had died, or if maybe he had been following along with the rest of the Wizarding World. The children leaving for school, leaving him with too much time on his hands and nobody to spend it with, had been the real trigger.

The silence stretched on, none of them apparently willing to talk. Harry wondered again what he was doing there; why Snape's home felt like some sort of safe haven when this was the very place he had been forcibly removed from. Was there something wrong with him? Was it some kind of masochistic streak that kept him looking for trouble, as Hermione has pointed out when he had announced he would quit the Aurors and she had refused to believe him?

"You've got your wish," Snape said. "You have never been one to accept that rules applied to you as much as to anyone else. Do you think you could explain to me why you're here, or do you deign yourself above explanations as well?"

Harry began to laugh, surprising himself - though, judging by Snape's expression, not nearly as much as he was surprising him.

"You make me feel normal," he said.

Snape raised an eyebrow. "You have never been normal."

"Exactly." Harry smiled, taking another sip from his tea.

"When... when you met my mom," he hesitatingly said, not sure he'd be allowed to go there, but if he had any chance of explaining, he would have to find some common ground. "Obviously I don't know much about your home life, but it felt like she provided some form of... escape, a refugee, where you could be who you are."

Snape didn't confirm or deny, but on the plus side, he wasn't throwing Harry out either. Harry decided to count that as a win.

"Everyone has always expected something of me, something I rarely had a choice in. To not have magic, to have loads of magic, to live, to die, to fight, to fall apart. There is this way I am supposed to act, supposed to be."

He wasn't sure how to explain the next part; how to explain that Snape seeing him as a mere shadow of his father, as a vessel of his mother, was such a relief because it meant he never expected anything of Harry.

"You didn't expect me to save the world, because you didn't believe me capable of it. You didn't expect me to behave well, because you believed I grew up pampered and sheltered. You didn't even expect me to get good grades, because you were so sure I thought too much of myself to spend time on silly things like studying. It was... freeing. It still is. Because you don't walk on eggshells around me. You don't ask me ten times a day whether I'm okay. You're still behaving as you always did, as if nothing has changed, as if..."

He took a deep breath, putting down the mug of tea that had started to shake in his hand, before he spilled it.

"You're a grown man," Snape pointed out. "You don't need to answer to anyone. Act like it."

"Yet here you are," Harry replied through gritted teeth; grateful for the return of normal conversation, from the turn away from his vulnerability. "Hiding from the world."

"I am not hiding," Snape said, voice calm, though Harry wasn't buying it for a second.

"Of course you are! I have seen your memories. All your life you've looked for a place to belong. And now you've given up."

Harry braced himself for the inevitable, hoping that, now he knew it would be coming, the forcible removal from the home wouldn't scare him as much. 

"Don't presume you know anything about me, just because you've seen a few snippets of my life, mister Potter," Snape said. 

"Tell me, then," Harry replied, the conversation making him feel more alive than he'd felt in a long time. "Tell me you're happy. Tell me every bit of your life makes perfect sense; tell me you celebrated your birthday last month happy to get another year."

This time, when the wards forced him out, he nearly laughed.

* * *

"I'll be by on Ostara," the note had said. "I'll bring eggs."

Severus had shaken his head and wondered two things. 

Why had Potter suddenly decided to announce his presence? Severus doubted something had happened over the last month to teach Potter manners, but that was the only explanation he could come up with. 

The more troubling question, though, was why he didn't stop it from happening. He wasn't entirely sure _why_ he was currently waiting for Potter to arrive. 

The moment Potter arrived, Severus marched out the door.

"What...?" Potter asked, as he turned on his heels and stalked after Severus. "You don't get rid of me that easily, you know!"

Severus resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"Why would I have waited for you to come by to take my leave, if I didn't want to be here in the first place?"

"To see my reaction?" Potter offered, and Severus had to concede that was at least a viable answer.

"I am not in the habit of indulging in such pettiness," he replied, and opted to ignore Potter's badly coughed 'hot tea' in favour of explaining what was going on. "We're hunting for fairy dust."

Now Potter looked at him as if he had grown a second head, and Severus started to re-evaluate his choices. It had seemed so sensible, to combine the two. If he were completely honest, it had seemed... nice, to not have to go alone. But if Potter was insistent on behaving like a, well, like a Potter, Severus wasn't sure this had been such a great idea.

"You still brew?" was Potter's response, and now Severus gave in to his impatience and heaved a sigh.

"I am a Potions Master," he pointed out. "What did you think I was doing with all my time?"

"Brood?" Potter asked, and Severus resisted the urge to smack him (they were still outside, after all, and though he himself didn't much care about what the papers thought of him, his customers might have a problem with him hitting their Golden Boy).

"I'm sorry," Potter said, and Severus felt a wave of emotions he couldn't immediately identify. Surprise, that one was easiest and self-evident, but buried underneath there seemed to be gratefulness and relief. He shoved it aside - he might have decided to not lie to himself any longer, but that didn't mean he couldn't ignore things as he wanted.

"That was uncalled for," Potter continued. "I was just... surprised. It seems like such a normal thing."

"You're not making things better," Severus pointed out, but he grabbed Potter's arm for a Side-Along Apparition anyway.

"I know," Potter said when they arrived, barely sparing a glance for his surroundings. Severus would be incensed at his carelessness if he wasn't too busy refusing to feel happy about the trust it showed in him. "Words have never really been my friends."

Severus started to walk along the path, stopping here and there for a flower that had only just began to bloom. Some potions called for the first blooms of the year, and this was his favourite place to collect those. The forest had always been able to calm him down.

"What I'm trying to say is," Potter said, his voice low, as if he too could feel the reverent air that hung in the forest, the almost sacred environment. "I've always wanted to see what my mother saw in you. I guess I never thought I'd actually get to find him."

Severus stopped in his tracks and turned to Potter.

"You think this is what Lily saw?" he asked, throwing his arms wide. "I am sixty years old, Potter. I am, as you so subtly pointed out last month, hiding from the world, in an attempt to define who I am without two lords hanging over my head. An attempt that is utterly failing. And you think this is what Lily saw?"

He turned around, not waiting for Potter's response, and continued down the path, his legs taking long strides as if he could leave the pain and vulnerability behind. What the hell had he been thinking, taking Potter here? Of course Potter would immediately spot the chink in his armour and go for it. Wasn't that a family trait? He had been deluding himself into thinking Potter might be more like Lily, might only push because he cared, because...

Suddenly Potter was in front of him, and Severus almost crashed into him.

"I think this is wat my mother saw," he said, and he reached up a hand to stroke Severus' face. Severus stood stock-still, too surprised by what was happening to pull away or push Potter away. His brain was such a confused mess that it was giving contradictory orders, so his limbs refused to do anything at all. But this... This type of thing didn't happen. Not to him. People didn't reach out to him, neither literally nor figuratively. And he had made his peace with that. Hadn't he?

"She saw someone who's scared," Potter continued, his voice still that same low murmur, and Severus let it caress him as if he didn't know any better. "She saw someone who's passionate about magic. Someone who needs a friend."

"She took pity on me, you mean," he scoffed, trying to shake away the urge to lean into Potter's touch. When had he gotten this desperate for affection? Or was Potter right, and had he always been that way, had he just been smart enough to tuck it away where no one could find it until bloody Potter turned out to be the one to uncover it with hardly any difficulty at all?

"No," Potter said, and Snape could see the frustration in his eyes. "I'm explaining this all wrong."

Potter stepped away and continued along the path; Severus watched him go for a minute before practicality kicked back in and he followed, stopping here and there for some nectar.

"Take a right," he called out when they arrived upon a crossing, and Potter turned without a word. They were coming upon the fairy kingdom now, and Severus didn't want any anger or hurt to pollute the air.

"Wait," he said, and Potter came to a halt. He turned around when Severus came upon him, and to Severus' surprise, he could see tears glittering in Potter’s eyes.

"Why are you crying?" he asked, bewildered, his confusion only heightened by the fact that he actually seemed to... care? Maybe it was the eyes, or maybe it was the fact that, no matter how he had laughed at Potter's explanation, he actually did understand what he had meant when he had talked about their interactions helping him feel normal.

Potter sat down on the grass, and after a moment's hesitation, Severus followed him on the opposite end of the path, placing a cushioning charm to protect him from any twigs. Their feet nearly touched each other in the middle of the track.

"I want to do this right," Potter said. "But I have no idea how. And I have nobody to turn to for help, because every single one of them would declare me crazy, and I could really use my mother right now which is ridiculous because I am bloody 39."

He angrily wiped some tears away; Severus wanted to reach out and tell him it was okay to cry, but couldn't figure out a way to do that and not feel like a hypocrite.

"I know you loved my mom," Potter continued softly, his fingers tracing patterns in the sand at his feet. "I know that's a really complicated and messy foundation to build anything upon. But... when I look at you, I see someone who's been brave for so long for other people, that he forgot to be brave for himself. I feel like you lost a part of you, and I'm not saying I can change that or-"

"You do have a saviour complex," Severus pointed out, though he couldn't bring himself to be as caustic as he'd otherwise had been. Nobody had ever offered him the gift of vulnerability before, not like this, and he found himself hesitant to break it. He didn't want to be cruel without a cause or reason.

"So people tell me." Harry laughed through his tears. "You try being told at 11 that you saved the world, have people look at you like you are a miracle, and not acquire a saviour complex."

"Fair point," Severus conceded. They retreated back into silence. 

"I know there's no real reason for me to be here," Potter eventually said, and Severus had to strain to hear him. "But I've always been better at listening to my heart anyway. And right now, this is where it wants to be."

"Don't make me into something I never was," Severus said, averting his eyes so he wouldn't have to see Potter's reaction to this part. "Even if I have lost something, that means it is no longer there. That boy Lily saw does no longer exist. I am responsible for your parents' death. I killed Albus Dumbledore. I killed more people than I care to remember. I am not a good person, Potter. Don't make me into some kind of hero."

He heard Potter stand and inhaled sharply, then forced his exhale to follow the normal pattern. He was never meant to have company, so why did he suddenly care? He got up as well, intent on saying a proper, polite goodbye before continuing on his way to find fairy dust. There might be some additional potency in it when mixed with tears; this was as good a time as any to find out.

When he got upright, though, Potter was still there.

"I'm not looking for a hero," Potter said, and he put a hand on Severus' arm to keep him from running away (or so it felt, anyway; for all Severus knew, Potter was simply scared he would fall down).

"You can scoff," - Severus hadn't even been aware he did that - "but I am not. I have been the hero. It's not all it's cracked up to be. I know you killed people. I know my parents died because of a prophecy you exposed. I suspect you killed for fun before realising what you'd gotten yourself into, and for necessity after."

Potter took a deep breath.

"I know all that," he continued. "But I would like to know who you are now. That Snape existed 22 years ago, bogged down by choices made in a lonely childhood. Had Draco had half the flair Lucius Malfoy had, chances are I would have ended up the same. But this Snape is free from such bonds, and is free to be whoever he wants to be. I'd like to be there to discover who that is."

* * *

Harry didn't know how long he'd been hiding in bed. He didn't want to find out, either. He kept his head firmly under the covers, his blanket a barrier keeping reality at bay. Flashes of memory were taunting him, but at least the dark seemed more forgiving than the sunlight streaming through his windows.

Nothing about his life made sense anymore. It had stopped making sense the moment Ginny died. Her death had pushed him into a freefall that he had no idea how to stop. At first, he had simply been numb, going through the motions of everyday life because it had been expected of him. But when the children had gone back to school, nothing had seemed to matter anymore.

He'd basically giving up when he had found the vial of Snape's memories while putting away Ginny's things. It had seemed so clear to him at the time that what he needed to do was return them. Just having a goal again had been liberating, and he had worked up to Snape's birthday with diligence.

He hadn't expected seeing Snape to bring back a rush of emotions that his body had unlearned how to feel.

_I know I'm not your first choice._

He hadn't been prepared for how easy it was to be around Snape, how he found something of himself that he had lost along the way with the one person in the world who refused to handle him like glass just because he was meant to save the world, or because he had just lost his wife. He loved his friends dearly, but every one of them had seemed to walk on eggshells lately. Snape hadn't. Snape just... was.

_Shut up and kiss me._

He turned again, trying to find a cool spot to calm his head, calm his body. Fighting with Snape had been normal, familiar, but seeing the glimpses of vulnerability underneath had been exhilarating. He was too old for a crush, and Snape was definitely too old for him, and there were so many layers of complexity between them that nothing about this was even close to being a good idea.

_I'd like to discover who that is._

But his body burned with desire, and his mind churned with unspoken questions and determined interest, and he hadn't felt this alive in months. Why fight it?

_I am just me._

Voices kept echoing in his head, forcing him to relive the moments just before the kiss over and over again. He didn't know what had come over him, and knew even less of what had come over Snape. Was it just the reminder of Lily for Snape, the refugee of no sympathy for him? How could he be sure any of this was even real?

* * *

Severus stood in front of a nondescript building in a nondescript Muggle neighbourhood. He had kept Potter's comments about the press in mind, and was hidden under an Disillusionment Charm to keep away all prying eyes. The sun's rays on his skin were pressure enough, a reminder that he was exposing himself in ways he was not accustomed to.

He should have knocked about an hour ago. Instead, he stood frozen, the running commentary in his mind as mocking as if any of his students had come to him for relationship advice.

_"Are you daft? The man kissed you. That's a universal sign for showing someone you like him. Yes, he ran off afterwards, but you can hardly blame him for something you yourself have done as well, now can you? Just knock on that bloody door and talk. You might think yourself so powerful, but even you can’t guess at someone's intentions without asking them."_

As he stepped on the path winding through Potter's front garden, he could feel wards passing over him. With some relief, he let go of the Charm he had been holding - he could really use all the power he possessed to keep himself from turning around and allowing time to erase all that had happened, all that he had felt.

He walked up to the front door and knocked. The man who opened the door looked almost nothing like the one who had shown up on his doorstep; Potter's hair was a mess that probably hadn't seen a comb in days, his eyes were bloodshot, his clothes wrinkled. Maybe he should have announced he was coming.

"Snape!" he exclaimed in surprise, running a hand through his hair as if that could somehow salvage it.

"Severus, please," Severus corrected, biting back a smile as Potter blushed. His obvious feelings of discomfort made Severus more at ease; if he wasn't the only one nervous, maybe this afternoon had hopes of not being completely ridiculous.

"Of course," Potter stammered, and took a step back to allow Severus into his home. "Tea?"

Severus nodded, and looked around the house. It felt empty, not just devoid of any further human beings, but empty. It wasn't until he entered the living room and came upon a photograph of Ginny on the mantel that he realised why that would be. The grief hit him, then; he hadn't recognised her tang in the air, probably because he himself had been so used to living with grief that it was so familiar as to go unnoticed. 

"I'm sorry for your loss," he said. "I don't think I have said that, yet."

Potter came into the living room with two cups of tea. Severus could hear the soft rattle of porcelain, and he wondered whether it was his presence or the subject of conversation that had Potter so shaken.

"Thank you," was all he said in response.

They sat down at the table.

"I know how grief can hollow you out," Severus said, his eyes on the tea as if it could provide him with a shield to hide behind. "How the world can stop making sense."

He swallowed, not sure how to continue, not even sure of what he was trying to say.

"I'm not trying to fit you in any hole," Potter hurried to say, and Severus couldn't contain his snort. A smile played on Potter's lips as well, though his brow was still furrowed in thought. "I feel like we're connected in some way, but I don't know enough to know if it's our past or genuine interest and affection."

"Maybe it's both," Severus pointed out. 

"You do remind me of her," he softly added. "Not so much back then, when you were so much like James. But the past couple of months... Lily would have done the same."

He warmed his hands on his tea cup, willing the tension out of his shoulders. 

"But you're not Lily," he said. "And... I like that. Lily was as tenacious, yes, but she wasn't the forgiving sort."

Potter looked up.

"I don't think I've ever heard anyone say something bad about my mother before," he admitted. 

Severus smiled softly; his lungs expanded, just a little, at having been able to get that out. Idolising Lily had been a necessity to get himself through the war, to remind himself over and over again to save Potter, no matter how much trouble the boy was. Rediscovering that Lily had had her flaws as well felt like freedom.

"We're complicated," Severus said. "You and me."

"Maybe that's a good thing," Potter said. "Maybe this is about second chances, not second choices."

Severus took another sip of his tea, allowing the warmth to suffuse him, to soften the tension behind his eyes.

"A second chance," he repeated. "I don't think if I ever envisioned such, it would have included you."

Potter gave a soft chuckle.

"Maybe that makes it easier," Potter said. "If neither of us expected this, we won't have to measure up to expectations. This can be a... search, for the both of us. We have both outlived our respective life expectancy by decades. Sometimes what we not expect is the best thing that could happen."

Severus nodded, unable to find flaws in that reasoning.

"I won't promise not to hurt you," he said, so softly that he almost wished Potter didn't hear it, though he knew it had to be said.

"Of course you will hurt me," Potter replied, as if it truly was the most natural thing in the world. "As I will hurt you. Nothing about this is easy. I'm not looking for easy. I'm looking for a place to belong."

"And that's me?" Severus snorted, desperately trying to keep the swirl of emotions from breaking through his chest and throwing themselves around Potter. His tea was sloshing dangerously in its cup, though fortunately he was already more than halfway through and there wasn't enough left for it to reach the edges.

"Let's find out," Potter smiled, and Severus amended his way of thinking.

Not Potter.

Harry.

“Let’s find out,” he echoed, and he leaned forward for another kiss. Maybe this time, they would love more than they hurt.


End file.
